Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories Speedrunning basic info

To beat the game from scratch we need either:
A) Insane TAS godlike 1 in a million luck
B) Very good luck still, but defeating certain opponents over and over and build a deck with:
- Good starting cards (reset!)
- Fusion materials (for Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon)
- Megamorph / Meteor B. Dragon / Equipment
We need to build a good deck because the final opponents are ridiculously difficult. We still need some good luck to beat the final opponents, even with a decent looking deck, and, sometimes, even with the strongest one we can make!
So to sum things up: We need good luck on opponents' card drops and good luck on the stronger campaign opponents. This game is a huge gamble, but it's still lovable and entertaining.



1- Starting deck
We would waste A LOT more time to obtain certain cards, instead of just resetting for a starting deck that already has them. It's not exactly thrilling to do so, but that's just the nature of the game.

Cards we absolutely need:
- Raigeki (1 in 2) - magic that destroys all opponent's monsters
- Equip (5 in 28) - most equips give +500 atk/def, but only to certain types of monsters. We're looking for an equip card that is compatible with Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon (the main monster we'll use), and those are:
[ Beast Fangs / Invigoration / Horn of Light / Dark Energy / Dragon Treasure ]

Other useful cards are:
- Umi (1 in 6) - water field (cancels other fields, powers up Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon, etc etc)
- Dragons/Thunders
- Other good fusion materials (animals, females etc)



2- Fusion materials
The main purpose of the deck is to make the card "Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon", which is the strongest, general fusion to make. It has 2800 attack, and it's made by fusing [Dragon + Thunder], at least one of which having 1600+ atk. Since we don't always get dragons or thunders that have 1600 or more attack by themselves, we first fuse our dragon with another card to make it a 1600+atk monster, and then fuse it with our thunder, going like:
[ Dragon + (filler) + Thunder ]
This (filler) is usually a plant, rock, machine, aqua or another thunder. Here's the list of the 1600+ dragon fusions that you'll see on a run:

Dragon + Thunder (1600+) = Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon (2800/2100) (our main player!)
Dragon + [Time Wizard] = Thousand Dragon (2400/2000)
Dragon + Plant = B.Dragon Jungle King (2100/1800)
Dragon + Rock = Stone D (2000/2300)
Dragon + Machine = Metal Dragon (1850/1700)
Dragon + Warrior (1300+) = Sword Arm of Dragon (1750/2030)
Dragon + Aqua = Spike Seadra (1600/1300) (or Kairyu-Shin (1800/1500) or Sea King Dragon (2000/1700))
Dragon + Zombie = Dragon Zombie (1600/0) (or Skelgon (1700/1900) or Curse of Dragon (2000/1500))
Dragon + Thunder (under 1600) = Thunder Dragon (1600/1500)
Thunder + Spellcaster (1500+) = Kaminari Attack (1900/1400)

- Other good fusions that don't involve dragons:
Female + Rock = Mystical Sand (2100/1700)
Animal + Pyro = Flame Cerebrus (2100/1800)
Female + Animal = Nekogal #2 (1900/2000)
Female + Plant = Queen of the Autumn Leaves (1800/1500)
Female + Fairy = Dark Witch (1800/1700)
Animal + Plant = Flower Wolf (1800/1400)
(there are MANY others, these are just the main animal/female niche - and no, "animal" and "female" are not formal types... this game is weird)



3- Good card drops
You can duel an opponent that you defeated in campaign over and over on "free duel". Each opponent has its own "drop list", acoording to the rank in which you defeat them. Your rank depends pretty much on the way you defeat your opponent (number of turns, fusions, magics used, life points, etc). I won't get too deep into this stuff, but the drop lists are different for: S/A-POW, S/A-TEC, BCD-Pow/Tec. We're aiming for specific ranks to get certain cards.

- Main cards that we're looking for (other than dragon/thunders), and how to obtain them:
Megamorph (equipment that gives +1000 atk/def to any monster) - Pegasus A-TEC
Dragon Treasure (equip) - Pegasus A-TEC, Isis BCD, Starting deck
Widespread Ruin (trap that destroys  the opponent's attacking monster) - Pegasus A-TEC, Isis BCD
Umi (water field) - Pegasus A-TEC, Isis BCD, Starting deck
Meteor B. Dragon (dragon, 3500/2000) - Meadow Mage S/A-POW
Skull Knight (spellcaster, 2650/2250) - Meadow Mage S/A-POW
Dark Magician (spellcaster, 2500/2100) - Meadow Mage S/A-POW
Dark Energy (equip) - Mage Soldier BCD



This is just an overview of what Forbidden Memories speedrunning is. If you're interested on running the game, I suggest looking up some runs and guides on http://www.speedrun.com/Yu-Gi-Oh_Forbidden_Memories , donwloading the software TEA for card drop probabilities, reading fusion FAQ's, playing around a bit with the game yourself, and hanging around on streams asking questions.